As a business owner, you have to seriously consider developing an online presence if you’re going to achieve lasting success. In the old days before the Internet, people drove around their neighborhood and visited shopping malls and shopping centers to buy the products they desired. Today, people search for reviews online and thoroughly research companies and the products and services they offer before ever stepping foot in a store, and many times it never even gets that far because they can buy products online and have them shipped directly to their door.
Clearly, developing an online presence is going to be crucial to your overall business success. Hopefully you see this now. Not only will it make it easier than ever for potential customers to find you, but having a presence online also makes it simple to discover and communicate with your target audience on a regular basis.
If you’re new to online business branding, it may seem scary at first. You’re learning about things like bulk email verification services, search engine optimization, pay per click marketing, social media and more. To help cut through the noise and give you the best chance at achieving online success, we’re going to share three avenues to explore to help you build your presence online and become a dominant player in your market.
Developing a Website
At this point, It doesn’t matter how large or small your business happens to be, because you need to develop a website, a home base on the Internet as it were. It doesn’t have to be the most amazing website in the world if funds are tight, although the more professional looking the better.
You have a couple of ways to approach creating a website for your business. You can buy a simple WordPress theme, install it on your website, and make changes so that it reflects the image you’re attempting to share with the world. Or you can hire a professional designer and web developer to create your website using the latest WordPress themes, which they will completely customize and overhaul from top to bottom to make it uniquely your own.
If you know nothing about web development or design, you should leave it to the professionals. Shop around amongst the hundreds of thousands of web designers online and find one willing to do the work at an affordable price. Check references, read online testimonials, and view their previous work.
Once you find a designer you like at a price you can afford, you should hire them to develop your company’s website. They will help you with the most of your visuals – both for your branding and your website. A good designer will help you choose the right color scheme, font, logo and other.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Now that you have a website in place, it’s time to get it ranking highly in the search engines. You need to establish yourself as a major authority in your industry, and one of the best ways to do that is to get high first page rankings for specific industry related keywords.
As an example, if you run a plumbing company in Los Angeles, you should rank for keyword phrases like “Los Angeles plumbers”, “plumbers in Los Angeles”, and “Los Angeles plumbing” to name a few. Once you’ve established these rankings, you’ll get plenty of great traffic directly from Google and the other search engines, and it will also help brand you as an authority in your market, so it’s a win-win situation.
We recommend picking up aWordPress SEO guide to learn more about this process.
Social Media
Last but not least, many of your potential customers will be hanging out on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google + and the like. It’s best to establish a fan base on these social media platforms. You can use them to tell your customers about discounts, sales, coupons, new product launches, new service launches and more.
Conclusion
Establishing a presence online will certainly take work, but it’s worth it over the long run. By taking the necessary steps now, you will create a foundation to help your business achieve lasting success today and in the future. So get started right away.
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